A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [107]
We talked about what Harold had done at the church supper. What I thought was that Jess’s driving up to that organic farm, then caroling on and on about it had been some kind of last straw. I had never thought Harold would be sympathetic to Jess’s organic farming idea, but I thought he had been of two minds about Jess himself. Rose took a darker view: that Harold had been plotting to humiliate Jess for a long time—maybe since Jess’s return—that he’d been playing him off against Loren and encouraging him with the will talk in order to get his hopes up. That was the Harold we had discussed during our Monopoly games, the Harold who hid calculating purposes behind foolishness. I related the incident I’d seen helping Jess transfer their frozen food from their freezer to ours—the way Harold snapped from rage to repartee without even a moment to collect himself. “Doesn’t that prove,” said Rose, “that it’s all a game with him? That everything he does is the result of some calculation? He gets people to laugh at him, but he’s not laughing.”
Then Harold Clark decided to side-dress his corn, maybe so he could get out there on his new tractor one more time. It was not something he did every year, and as far as I could tell, everybody’s corn looked fine. There had certainly been plenty of rain—our corn was an intense, healthy green. But why not, Harold must have thought. A little insurance for the yield, and the pleasure of driving that shiny red piece of machinery along the fencerow next to Cabot Street Road.
The only thing Harold said later was that one of the outside knives looked clogged. What he would have done then was to pull the rope that shut the valve on top of the tank. Maybe he was in a hurry, because then he got down off the tractor and went around to the malfunctioning knife where it bit a few inches into the soil. No one knows why he jiggled the hose. Possibly he only touched it while bending down, brushed against it with his hand or his sleeve. At any rate, the hose jerked off the knife, and with the last puff of pressure remaining in the line, sprayed him in the face. He wasn’t wearing goggles.
Anhydrous ammonia isn’t “drawn to the eyes” because of their moisture, the way people sometimes say, it only feels that way, because the moisture in the eyes reacts with the fumes and creates a powerful alkali.
In spite of the pain, Harold staggered to the water tank on top of the ammonia tank, knowing that his only hope was to flush his eyes and neutralize the ammonia. The water tank was empty. At this point, Harold was overcome, and he simply keeled over in the field. It was Dollie, on her way to work at Casey’s in Cabot, who saw him. He was kneeling among the rows of corn, rocking back and forth with his hands over his face. There wasn’t any water anywhere out there. She drove him back to the house and helped him get his face under the outdoor spigot. Then Loren got home, and he drove Harold to the hospital in Mason City.
Jess was out running.
Pete was in Pike buying cement.
Rose was helping Linda sew a pair of polka-dot shorts and a halter top.
Daddy was sitting in the glider on Harold’s porch, talking to Marv Carson about getting his farm back.
Ty was working at the top of one of the new Harvestores with the crew of three Minnesota men.
I was dropping Pammy off at Mary Louise Mackenzie’s house in Cabot.
I imagine this news rolling toward each of us like a dust cloud on a sunny day, so unusual that at first it seems more interesting than scary, that it seems, in the distance, rather small, smaller certainly